Dear blog readers,
I am finally here with my KRW 2008 review.
I wish I would have had more time to enjoy this fantastic idea out of Stephanie Scott’s bag, which makes me reflect upon the fact that just ONE week is not enough.
KRW’s should be extended to at least two weeks. I selected my picks and decided to devote my WEEK to visit them all, but I could not reach my goal. Between my work obligations and meetings my selection was narrowed down to only 4 out of 6 of my original list.
Notwithstanding, I enjoyed my KWR 2008 experience: general good ambiance, good media coverage (although a little bit rushed at the very last minute), good selection of restaurants, excellent menus and lovely people.
This is why I say it should be extended!
I started with MAC’s. It was a fantastic experience and this is the top restaurant in service. You can really feel that the high level concept is well spread all over this venue. The ambiance is set for you to be well served during all your dining experience and it is visible that there is somebody taking good care of this business.
My choices from their menu were delicious: escargots, shrimp and a pavlova for dessert. I really recommend this place for any special occasion that you have in mind, since the service matches the taste of the dishes.
I have been there before and I have to say the taste is constant, which really says a lot about quality… but, speaking of the latter, I got sick from my escargots! I could not believe the perverse effect of those little creatures on my stomach.
I really spent an awful night after being there!
I do not want to say that this is the rule if you visit MAC’s and I still love the flavour of their food and the concept of the restaurant, but something went wrong with my escargots and this is something that must be taken into account by the owner.
I will keep visiting MAC’s… I know this is an unusual accident.
And when you go, try their PAVLOVA… it is really a heavenly dessert!
Once I felt better, I decided to go PALM COURT. This is the latest idea of the HILTON family. It’s a buffet restaurant that is located above the lobby. Their menu sounded delicious… it really did, but it did not reflect the taste.
I did not enjoy any of my menu choices there. Flavour and grace were to be found on their dishes, which is really unfortunate because they are doing their best.
Once I felt better, I decided to go PALM COURT. This is the latest idea of the HILTON family. It’s a buffet restaurant that is located above the lobby. Their menu sounded delicious… it really did, but it did not reflect the taste.
I did not enjoy any of my menu choices there. Flavour and grace were to be found on their dishes, which is really unfortunate because they are doing their best.
Ambiance was good and servers were extremely helpful and up to par. I am going to give it another try during lunch, because it seems to be a nice and not-too-expensive restaurant choice in the busy New Kingston.
After the disappointing visit to PALM COURT, my next restaurant was the relaxed BIRD’S NEST. I was surprised. I selected this out of curiosity because their menu was not really attractive, but I wanted to see how they prepared for this week. I mean, you always dress well when you are invited to a party.
Nice flavour, expected fair food quality and nice servers!
This unpretentious place really won me over with their escoveitched, their curry goat and their chocolate cake! Good job and thumbs up for the people of BIRD’S.
My last restaurant selection was the complex MELTING POT. I was really overwhelmed by their menu, which, in my opinion, was the most colourful of this edition of KRW.
I enjoyed their presentation and their effort. And I will certainly go back… this was a “mouth opener” for me!
I tried their pumpkin and gnocchi soup, their rasta ravioli and their delicious trio brulee… FANTASTIC!
Had I pick a winner among my restaurant choices, I would give the GOLD MEDAL to the MELTING POT.
Nice service and very well thought and intelligent menu, good ambiance… they were really a pleasant surprise and the best way to sell a concept!
So, my dear blog readers, here they are! This was my experience. What about yours? I heard many of my friends talking about different places: SUSIE’S, COLUMBUS and even GLORIA’S. This week for me was an enormous success and it certainly was the talk of the town.
Hats off to the organizers and the person behind this idea… excellent promotion for the participating restaurant and sponsors…. and a beautiful opportunity for us FOOD LOVERS to enjoy Kingston’s culinary scene at its best!
Keep on eating!
8 comments:
I went to Melting Pot as well, and was extremely impressed. Your review of it is spot on!
Love your blog!
I agree whit Restaurant recommendation, but the authentic experience of Jamaica taste is in the Street and in the Family Pot.
We like you explore also the traditional food doing in the tin, in the shoppes, in the beaches.
Also the popular fast food and snack.
And also explore the tradition of some families, especially in this holy days.
I am a foreigner in this country and I have good and bad experiences. Always the bad experiences coming whit a bad service. Because the food in Jamaica is an problem of taste and like, but the service is the principal question for give a client a good experience.
Congratulation for this blog, I am glad to read your opinions and recommendations.
Viviana
PSD: Sorry for my bad english.
Same here re Melting Pot, excellent choices on the menu, Ambiance and staff were pleasant and very accommodating. My Trio Brule was a bit dry, but that might be a one off situation, apart from that, it did not detract from the experience.They could have used a little more imagination with the desserts but good none the less. Excellent all-round package.
My experience was with Waterfalls. I must say, their menu sounded quite enticing but the service and actual taste...HORRIBLE.
My bad experience began from the moment I entered the door. I had made a reservation for 11 persons and 4 of us happened to arrive at the same time. I was greeted bya security guard at the door who asked if I had reservations. I replied "Yes, I haev a reservation for 11 persons at 8:00" he said "ok" and ushered me inside. Once I got through the door, this sercurity guard disappeard and left me standing in front of the host who was in the process of handling a bill and he was discussing it with the server. The four of us stoood there unacknowledged until I addressed the host. I cleared my throat and said "excuse me" and the response I got was,
"yeh, you have a reservation?"
my response
"yes ____ party of 11 for a 8:00 reservation"
host
"oh a person from the party is already here"
The host then went back to what he was doing and I had to make my own way to what I thought was my table and seat myself. Afetr counting teh seats I sat with the now 4 members of my party and waited for about another 5 minutes then realized that the table only had 10 seats. Since tehre was no server in sight, I had to make my way back to the host to address this issue.
My address:
"Sir, I think we have been seated at the wrong table. Tehre are only 10 seats and my party consists of 11 people, shoudl we be at that other table?"
host:
(does not respond but makes his way over to the table and satrts counting the seats one by one...might I had he had to do this twice because he lost count!"
"Yeh you can sit dere"
Already terribly disapointed, and not even given an apology, I sat and decided to see what thirlls this night had in store for me.
One by one my party filled the table and by 8:30 we were all accounted for. The menus were brought to the table shortly after. We all sat and chatted about the ambiance.
After about 10 minutes, we realized we had still not gotten any water and a server had not yet come to us. I looked around and ended up having to call a waitress over to the table. She came over and said goodnigth and I told her noone had come to us as yet. She apologized and said she woudl be right back. Little did I know, her concept of "right back" and mine were totally different!
After another 20 minute wait (we had been served water by now, the waitress returned to the table with notepad in hand. She walked around taking orders from each person. When she came to me, I asked if I could havea drink menu from the bar. She told me she woudl bring it out as soon as she placed the order with the kitchen. I placed my food order and off she went to put it in.
After about another 15 minute wait, I had not gotten the drink list as yet. While she was passing by I stopped her and asked her if she rememebred the drink list. her response was "the bartender don't come to yu yet?" I told her he had not and she said she woudl check on it. Off she went again.
after about another 15 minute wait, the first course arrived. I had ordered lobster bisque. To my grave dispoointment, the bisque was cold and it was an unusually dark colour. The flavour was not bad...nothing to write home about, but the sad part was that it seems that they did not strain the bisque! there were fine "whiskers" in every spoonful that stuck in my teeth. This paired with the bisque already being cold, I had about 1/3 of the small serving and pushed it aside.
It took about 15 minutes after we had finished the first course for the server to arrive for clearing. She never asked if we enjoyed the meal or if everything was "ok". She just cleared and walked away...meanwhile, I had STILL not gotten my drink list.
While waiting for the main course, the bartender arrived at my table with a piece of computer paper with about 8 drinks (no descriptions as to ingredients or type of drink i.e. martini, blended, shot) and he told me he was very sorry but he had to type it up on the computer and print it and this is the reason it took so long.
Not wanting anyone to spit in my food I smiled sweetly and said "Its ok, thank you". I took one glance and decided to keep it safe and order smoething I already know, an apple martini. Its a simple drink and I was confident it woudl be ok. when the server was passing by, I decided to stop her and order my apple martini. Off she went and placed the order immediately.
The drink came fast, but I am left to wonder where this bartender was trained! My martini was semi blended with chunks of ice floating on top. I never thought an applpe martini woudl be so difficult to get right, but the taste was off...It wasn't terrible, but nothing like the apple martini I am accustomed to. I pushed it aside and waited for ti to melt to see if it was any better.
Shortly afetr, The main course arrived. I had ordered the "Seafood Samba" Which was so wonderfully described as lobster, scallops and grilled shrimmp is a delightful creamm cheese sauce...sounds enticing right? uh it was anything but good!
The lobster was a puny half lobster that could hold in the middle of my clenched fist. There were 4 scallops the size of my thumb and 4 shrimp...also tiny.
The pasta was the colour of boxed macaroni and cheese and to tell you the truth, the flavour was not far off from it either! It was a mixture of bow tie, spiral AND Penne pasta and it was dry and clmpy. The seafood was dried out and trashy and nothing on the plate had much flavour. It was almost inedible! It seemed as if they had prepared this from early out and had microwaved it until there was nothign left. It was bearly warm by the time it got there too...so terribly disappointed. I ended up eating half of my boyfriends ribs (which were pretty good, justa little fatty).
The server once again took quite a while to clear. We waited approximately 15 minutes afetr the meal was served to be cleared and the only reason the waitress knew we were ready to be cleared was because I once again stopped her to ask her about a whole cake I had in the refrigerator which I brought for my own celebration.
I don't know what the dessert taste like, as I said, I brought my own. When we were finished, We requested the bill which never arrived at my table. After a 25 minute wait, we all made our way to the host to request the bill. We did not wait long as he was almost ready when we got ther. I recieved a jumbled, confusing bill which none of us could make heads or tails of. I had to sit and go through with the host (who sounded like he could not make heads nor tails of it either) and had to go through each person's bill one by one while he wrote new ones. I foudn it a disgrace wen I asked him for teh total for the first bill and his response was "two bills fifty" I said "Excuse me?" and at this point I got upset. I told him he shoudl NEVER be using street language with customers at a a place of business and he shoudl ahve some respect. I asked where the manager was and his reply was "I don't knwo...somewhere" afterwhich he just burried his head back in the bills and continued to do what he was doing. I expressed my disappointment in the service and the meal (and at this point, he STILL had not acknowldged the fact that I asked fro the manager. He simply responded by saying "Well, you are the only complaint we have gotten. Everybody who come her luv it" At this point, I was fuming! I was tired, left hungry after spending my good money and terribly upset with the service! I simply told him to give me the bill and that Waterfalls was a DISGRACE!
I woudl have written a letter to the manager, but since the manager had not even been seen throughout my very lengthy dining experience, I figured that they probably wouldn't care anyway.
I must say, for a place that has so much going for it, they MUST do better!
Your a few words:
My choice for this week: Susie's.
Guys that was Siimply EXCELLENT in all senses: ambiance, decoration, service, food (yummy) and even the music. Thumb up for Susie and her team!!!!!!!!!
Well, My experience was a little different. I had some people from abroad visiting and who told me to reserve a table of only 7 at White Bone.i Had an early reservation (7pm) because my son had school the next morning. As we reach there, our table was given to somebody else what upset me more is the they gave our table of 7 to 4 people to sit on it.
we had to wait aroung 40 minutes for our table to be ready and they put us in a corner that i didn't want to sit in. i had a 2 month old child with me as well.
let me cut it short, we sat at the table and i couldn't put my back on the chair because it was soaking wet and the trees dripping on my 2 months old anyways the waitress there recognized that i moved us to a different spot and we sat finally. we placed the order and of course service in Jamaica is anything but not service so we had to wait a longggg time for appetizer and then main course also took so long my son dropped asleep on the chair before he ate his meal....if we had sat on our reserved table from beging my son wouldn't sleep hungry.as we were eating a little rat ran over my husband's foot so of course i had to keep my feet in the air.
but i can say that the food was not too bad. it could have been much better but i wasnot impressed at all especially with strangers.
i hope they will read my review and take it in consideration
In my opinion, KRW is a disaster.
and also i think the restaurants that are not in it, keep out of it otherwise you are going to loose you customers because of KRW.
Thanks..
Totally agree KRW needs to be longer...it came and went without me getting to go to anywhere!!
KRW 2008 was awesome!!!
My choice was Macs Chop House...
OMG... The place is superb! The setting, the lighting, the decorations, and just about everything was top of the line!
I was so comfortable, and happy... From door to table, someone was there to assist us.... Said I had a reservation at the door, and I was escorted in...
The owner greeted us at the door, and off we went to our table. We had very friendly waiters, and impeccable service. Our food was at our table within 5 minutes of ordering... and while we ate, a server was standing right at the table... as soon as we were done, the table was cleared... Our main course was already on it's way.... I had the perpperpot soup, and it was estupendo!
I ordered the lobster and coconut rice for the main course... and oh my... it was fab! It was served with sweet and irish potato in it's own dish, a dish with vegetables, and a dish with the lobster and rice...
The layout of the food was wow... absolutely beautiful! The rice was served in real coconuts, and the lobster head placed in the plate... (my my)
The food was MAGNIFICENT! I can't emphasize anymore how good it was....
BUT, the epitome of the night was the flaming Alaska! It's a cake, with layers of ice cream, fruits, sugar, and some other stuff with icing on top... ON fire!!
It was soooo great! And it closed the night with a bang!
The bathroom didn't carry paper as we're used to... they had wash cloths... my my... perfect!
The bill was easy to understand... and we had no problems... It was a the perfect dining experience!
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